Method for constructing an outdoor structure such as a gate post, gate wing, or fence

ABSTRACT

Artificial stones (10) are molded in a predetermined number of different shapes and a substrate (20) is expansion-molded from foam plastics. Artificial stone receiving recesses (22) are molded integrally with the substrate (20) so as to be paired with the respective artificial stones (10). The artificial stones (10) are adhesively inserted into the corresponding receiving recesses (22) so that such insertion may serve to provisionally prevent the artificial stones (10) from scaling off or falling off before setting of adhesive agent. A protruding rib (21) bordering and defining the respective artificial stone receiving recesses (22) serves also as a joint base adapted to support the overlying joint mortary (23). In this manner, adhesive fixation of the artificial stones (10) is facilitated, on one hand, and weight reduction of the gate post (A) is achieved by employing foam plastics as material for the substrate (20), by making the protruding rib (21) serving also the joint base supporting the overlying joint mortar (23) consequently by saving an amount of the joint mortar (23) to be used.

This is a divisional of application Ser. No. 08/579,874 filed Dec. 28,1995, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,713,561.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to an outdoor structure such as gate post,gate wing or fence and a method for constructing same.

2. Description of the Related Art

Such outdoor structure conventionally been constructed by adhesivelyplacing tiles, natural stones, artificial stones etc. on an inorganicsubstrate such as concrete substrate or mortar substrate using, forexample, mortar adhesion substantially according to the traditionalmethod for for adhesive placement of them on outer wall of a building.For example, when the tiles are adhesively placed on the mortarsubstrate, the mortar substrate is formed on its surface with protrudingrib destined to be engaged with corresponding ridge formed on a rearsurface of each tile so that the desired adhesive placement may beeffectively assisted by such engagement serving as provisional fixationmeans.

However, mass production of the outdoor structure such as gate post,gate wing or fence comprising the inorganic substrate and saidartificial stones adhesively placed thereon would require a crane fortransport and installation thereof because the structure constructed ina plant will be inconveniently bulky and heavy. In view of workefficiency, there has been a serious demand for the outdoor structure oflight weight.

As is well known, the tiles are usually obtained by cutting extrudedlong molding followed by sintering treatment and can be easily formed ontheir rear surfaces with the ridges cooperating with the protruding ribformed on the mortar substrate. On the other hand, the artificial stonesare usually obtained by casting mortar or the like into various sizes aswell as shapes and can not be easily formed with the ridges or the likewith sufficient accuracy to be used as the provisional fixation means.In addition, the artificial stones obtained by casing of mortar arerelatively heavy and apt to scale or fall off from the substrate duringthe adhesive placement under their dead loads. If, to avoid such fallingoff, the substrate is laid down so that its side on which the artificialstones will be adhesively placed may horizontally extend, the productionefficiency would be unacceptably reduced, because the operator must waitfor setting of the adhesive agent before the next side of the samesubstrate can be worked.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In view of the problem as has been described above, it is a principalobject of the invention to provide an outdoor structure such as gatepost, gate wing or fence and a method for constructing this so improvedthat the structure's weight can be reduced as significantly as possible,the adhesive placement of artificial stones can be achieved asefficiently as possible and the product as well as the method can beadapted for mass prodeuction.

The object set forth above is achieved, according to an aspect of theinvention, by an outdoor structure such as gate post, gate wing or fencecomprising a substrate as a primary component made of foamed plasticsfor weight reduction, artificial stones molded in a predetermined numberof differnet shapes common to each type of the structure in order toimprove an effciency for adhesive fixation of the artificial stones anda protruding rib provided on the substrate defining respectiveartificial stone receiving recesses into which the artificial stones ofthe shapes corresponding to the respective receiving recesses areinserted. Such insertion of the artificial stones into the correspondingreceiving recesses serves as provisional fixation means for finaladhesive fixation of the artificial stones and the protruding rib servesalso as a joint base adapted to support the overlying joint material inorder to save a necessary amount of joint material and thereby toachieve further weight reduction. More specifically, the object setforth above is achieved, in accordance with the invention, by an outdoorstructure such as gate post, gate wing or fence comprising a pluralityof artificial stones, a substrate made of foamed plastics having asurface on which said artificial stones are adhesively fixed, and jointdisposed on the surface of said substrate between respective pairs ofadjacent artificial stones, said outdoor structure being characterizedby that there are provided a plurality of said artificial stones moldedin a predetermined number of different shapes; said substrate isprovided in its surface with a plurality of artificial stone receivingrecesses having different shapes corresponding to the shapes of therespective artificial stones, each of said artificial stone receivingrecesses being defined by a rib of foamed plastics protruding from thesurface of said substrate and lower than a thickness of the artificialstones; these artificial stones are adhesively inserted into thecorresponding receiving recesses as a provisional fixation procedure forsaid adhesive fixation; and said protruding rib serves as a joint baseadapted to support the overlying joint material.

To facilitate formation of the protruding rib on the substrate as wellas of the artificial stone receiving recesses, this protruding rib andartificial stone receiving recesss are preferably molded integrally withthe substrate from foam plastics.

Preferably, the artificial stones as well as the artificial stonereceiving recesses are post-attached to a molding of thin-board-likefoamed plastics or a meshy moldidng of foamed plastics defining theprotruding rib is post-attached to the substrate.

By providing the subsrate made of foamed plastics, it becomes possibleto attach an anchoring member to each artificial stone and thereby toutilize this anchoring member as provisional fixation means being ableto hold this artificial stone when said anchoring member penetrates thesubstrate as the artificial stone is inserted into the correspondingreceiving recess. Accordingly, said artificial stones are preferablyprovided additionally with an anchoring members partially embeddedtherein and partially projecting out from the rear surfaces of therespective artificial stones so that said projecting portions of theanchoring members penetrate the substrate as the artificial stones areadhesively inserted into the corresponding receiving recesses and saidpenetration serves as further provisional fixation means for the finaladhesive fixation.

The object set forth above is achieved also, according to another aspectof the invention, by a method for producing an outdoor structure such asgate post, gate wing or fence using a plurality of artificial stonesmolded in a predetermined number of different shapes and a substratemade of foamed plastics and provided on its surface with a protrudingrib made of foamed plastics but of a height smaller than a thickness ofeach artificial stone, on one hand, and provided in its surface withartificial stone receiving recess defined by said protruding rib so asto correspond to said artificial stones with respect to the number aswell as the shapes, on the other hand, said artificial stones and saidartificial stone receiving recesses being provided with mutually pairedmarks, said method comprising steps of adhesively inserting theartificial stones into the artificial stone receiving recesses havingthe corresponding marks, respectively; embedding joint material in a gapdefined between respective pairs of adjacent artificial stones so thatsaid protruding rib may serve as a joint base adapted to support theoverlying joint material; and adhesively fixing the artificial stones inthe corresponding receiving recesses by setting of suitable adhesiveagent with assistance of said insertion serving as provisional fixationprocedure.

As will be readily understood from the foregoing description, theinvention sufficiently reduces weight of the outdoor structure to bemanually transported and installed without use of a crane. Theartificial stones are molded in a predetermined number of differentshapes which are common to each type of the outdoor structures and thesubstrate is formed with the artificial stone receiving recessescorresponding to said artificial stones, respectively, so that theartificial stones may be inserted into the corresponding receivingrecesses and such insertion may be used as provisional fixationprocedure for the final adhesive fixation of the artificial stones. Inthis manner, the final adhesive fixation of the artificial stones can bereliably and firmly achieved while the artificial stones are maintainedin their provisionally fixed positions without an apprehension that theymight scale off or fall off due to their dead loads, movement orvibration. The adhesive fixation of the artificial stones can be thuscarried out as easily as possible particularly in a manner suitable formass production. In addition, the protruding rib defining the respectiveartificial stone receiving recesses can be used as the joint baseadapted to support the overlying joint material and thereby a necessaryamount of the joint material can be saved so that the joint mortarusually employed for the same purpose may be employed as the jointmaterial without loss of the desired weight reducing effect.

Each artificial stone and the receiving recess paired with thisartificial stone are provided with identical marks in order tofacilitate identification of the respectively paired artificial stoneand receiving recess and thereby to provide the method allowing even aninexperienced operator to produce the desired structure with highefficiency.

Function provided by the anchoring member to hold the artificial stoneas it penetrates the substrate serves as further provisional fixationmeans for the final adhesive fixation and cooperates with theprovisional fixation means provided by the adhesive insertion of theartificial stones into the respective receiving recesses to assure morereliable and firm provisional fixation.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a gate post and a fence, the latterbeing shown as partially broken away;

FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing a substrate of the gate post aspartially broken away;

FIG. 3 is a scale-enlarged fragmentary perspective view illustrating arelationship between the substrate and the artificial stone;

FIG. 4 is a perspective view of an artificial stone as viewed from itsrear side;

FIG. 5 is a scale-enlarged vertical sectional view showing a part of thegate post; and

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

Details of the invention will be better understood from the followingdescription of preferred embodiments made in reference with theaccompanying drawings. Reference letter A designates a gate post andreference letter B designates a fence butt-jointed to said gate post A.The gate post A or the fence B comprises a plurality of artificialstones 10, a substrate 20 made of foamed plastics into which saidartificial stones 10 are adhesively inserted, and joint 30 disposedbetween respective pairs of adjacent artificial stones 10 inserted intosaid substrate 20 so as to form a unit destined to be fixedly installedon the ground surface.

The artificial stones 10 are those molded in predetermined number ofdifferent shapes and, in the specific embodiment illustrated, theartificial stones 10 are molded from mortar and colored like naturalstones. These artificial stones 10 are molded in predetermined number ofdifferent shapes and in an average thickness of about 3 cm. According tothis embodiment, each of the artificial stones 10 is provided with ananchoring member 11 comprising a seat disc 12 embedded in the stone anda nail projecting out from said seat disc 12 through a rear surface ofthe stone.

The substrate 20 is formed on its surface a protruding rib 21 made offoamed plastics which has a height smaller than the thickness of theartificial stone and a plurality of artificial stone receiving recesses22 bordered or defined by the protruding rib 21 in conformity with therespective shapes of the artificial stones 10. The protruding rib 21 andthe artificial stone receiving recesses 22 are molded integrally withthe substrate 20 which is also made of foamed plastics.

For example, the substrate 20 of the gate post A may be dimensioned tobe 45 cm in width as well as in depth and 1 to 2 m in height while thesubstrate 20 of the fence B may be dimensioned to be 1 m in width, 20 cmin depth and 60 cm in height. Each of these substrates 20 is solid andexpansion molded from foam plastics such as polystyrene so that theouter layer and the core of said substrate may be expanded at differentexpansion ratios. More specifically, the process of expansion molding ispreferably controlled to be effected at an expansion ratio of 10 in theouter layer of 1 to 2 cm and at an expansion ratio of 50 in the core sothat the outer layer may be relatively hard but the core may berelatively soft. The protruding rib 21 is expansion molded at the sameexpansion ratio as that in the outer layer so as to become relativelyhard. Thereby, not only an effective weight reduction of the substratecan be achieved but also the artificial stone receiving recesses 22 canreliably hold the artificial stones 10 as will be described later morein detail.

In this embodiment, the protruding rib 21 is distributed over the entiresurface of the substrate 20 except the bottom surface thereof and isdimensioned to have a hight, for example, of 1 cm which is smaller thanan average thickness of said artificial stones which may be 3 cm while adepth of the artificial stone receiving recess 22 is correspondinglydimensioned to be 1 cm.

Adhesive insertion of the artificial stones 10 into the substrate 20 isachieved first by adhesively inserting the artificial stones 10 into thereceiving recesses 22 and such insertion serves as provisional fixationmeans. The anchoring members 11 carried by the respective artificialstones 10 penetrate the substrate 10 as said artificial stones 10 areadhesively inserted into the respective receiving recesses 22 and suchpenetration of the anchoring members 11 serves as further provisionalfixation means.

Specifically, adhesive mortar 23 is applied to the artificial stones 10or the receiving recesses 22 of the substrate 20 before the process ofsaid adhesive insertion so that the desired adhesive fixation may beeffected by setting of said adhesive mortar 23. During insertion of theartificial stones 10 into the receiving recesses 22, the protruding rib21 associated with these receiving recesses 20 holds the artificialstones 10 by its elasticity peculiar to foamed plastics andprovisionally fixes the artificial stones 10, thus preventing theseartificial stones 10 from scaling off or falling off from the receivingrecesses 22 due to their dead loads, movement, vibration or the othercauses. Additionally, one the needle of the anchoring member 11 haspenetrated the substrate 20, the latter holds this needle by itselasticity against falling off and provides a secondary fixing effectagainst said scaling off or falling off of the artificial stones 10. Inthis manner, this embodiment allows the provisional fixation to bereliably and firmly achieved so that the adhesive mortar 23 may be setwith the artificial stones 10 being maintained adhesively inserted intothe respective receiving recesses 22.

This embodiment uses joint mortar as material for the joint 30 which isto be embedded in a gap defined between respective pairs of adjacentartificial stones 10 and said protruding rib 21 distributed over thesubstrate 20 function as a joint base adapted to support the overlyingjoint 30.

As has already been described, the protruding rib 21 distributed overthe substrate 20 fills the gap defined between respective pairs ofadjacent artificial stones 10 up to a height of 1 cm in conformity witha pattern of the joint 30. The protruding rib 21 serves as the jointbase adapted to support the joint mortar from below and thereby tosupplement a volume thereof. As a result, the joint of a predeterminedheight, for example, the joint having its top surface lying at a levellower than the top surfaces of the artificial stones 10 by 1 cm can beformed by using a relatively small amount of joint mortar and suchfeature also contributes to the weight reduction of the finished gatepost A or the fence B.

Reference numeral 25 designates a pile to be buried into the ground forinstallation of the gate post A or the fence B, wherein a single pile 25may be provided for the gate post A and a pair of piles 25 may beprovided at longitudinally opposite ends for the fence B.

The gate post A or the fence B of the above-mentioned constructionas maybe produced according to a method comprising steps of, during or aftermolding the artificial stones 10 as well as the substrate 20, pressing,writing or stamping suitable marks such as numerals, letters or figureson the artificial stones 10 and the receiving recesses 22 formed in thesubstrate 20, said marks corresponding to each other for every pair ofmutually associated artificial stone 10 and receiving recess 20 in orderto assure that the respective artificial stones 10 may be adhesivelyinserted into the associated receiving recesses 22; embedding the jointmaterial into the gap defined between the respective pairs of adjacentartificial stones 10 so as to be supported by the underlying rib 21serving as the joint base; and adhesively fixing the artificial stones10 by setting of adhesive agent cooperating with said insertion servingas provisional fixation procedure.

While both the artificial stones 10 and the receiving recesses 22 are ofplural differnet sahpes and sizes, the number of these shapes and sizesare limited and predetermined so that it is possible for a skilledoperator to identify the artificial stones 10 and the receiving recesses22 into which these artificial stones 10 should be inserted,respectively, without providing these artificial stones 10 and thereceiving recesses 22 with the previously mentioned marks. However,these marks facilitate even an inexperienced operator to identify themutually corresponding or paired artificial stone 10 and receivingrecess 22 and improve an efficiency of the identification as well as theadhesive insertion based on said identification. During the step ofadhesive insertion, identification of the artificial stones 10 and theassociated receiving recesses 22 may be performed collectively orindividually and the adhesive agent such as adhesive mortar 23 may beapplied to the artificial stones 10 and/or the receiving recesses 22before adhesive insertion of the artificial stones 10 into the receivingrecesses 22.

The step of embedding the joint may be performed by supplying the jointmaterial such as joint mortar into the gap defined between therespective pairs of adjacent artificial stones 10 so that the protrudingrib 21 may support the joint from below as the joint base.

The step of adhesive fixation may be performed, when the adhesive mortar23 or the like is used as the adhesive agent and the joint mortar isused as the joint material, by setting them under natural seasoning orheat drying. The gate post A or the fence B may be transported to thesite of installation before this step of adhesive fixation becauseartificial stones 10 have already been provisionally fixed.

It should be understood here that the invention is not limited to theembodiment as has been described hereinabove in reference with theaccompanying drawings. For example, the artificial stones may bemoldings of rigid plastics. When anchoring member is employed, thepreviously mentioned anchoring member having a single nail may bereplaced by an anchoring member made of metallic material or rigidplastics comprising a plurality of nails and a seat disc. The substratemay be a single molding of foam plastics or a composite moldingcomprising a plurality of moldings bonded together, or may be formed bya core such as a frame and a base layer of thick foamed plasticscovering the core. Expansion ratio of foam plastics may be selected froma wide range and, if desired, an expansion ratio may be common to theouter layer and the core. The protruding rib and the artifical stonereceiving recesses may be post-attached to a thin-board-like molding offoam plastics or a meshy molding of foam plastics defining theprotruding rib may be post-attached to the substrate. Adhesive agentother than the adhesive mortar may be also used for adhesive fixation ofthe artificial stones. Moldings configurated in conformity with apattern of the joint may be also used as the joint material and embeddedinto the gap defined between the respective pairs of adjacent artificalstones so as to be supported by the underlying rib. The invention isapplicable to the various outdoor structures other than the gate postand the fence, for example, the gate wing. It should be understood that,without departing from the scope and the spirit of the invention, therecan be provided many variations and/or modifications in the specificarrangement, configuration, material, number, dimension and their mutualrelationship of the artificial stones, the protruding rib, theartificial stone receiving recesses, the anchoring members, if they areemployed, the marks provided on the artificial stones and the receifingrecesses, also if they are employed, and the specific steps forproduction thereof.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for producing a structure comprising thesteps of:molding a plurality of artificial stones in different shapes;indicating a mark on each of the artificial stones; making a substrateof an elastic foamed plastic material,said substrate having a surfaceand being provided on its surface with a plurality of artificial stonereceiving recesses and a plurality of ribs protruding from the substratesurface, said recesses being defined and bordered by said protrudingribs in conformity with the respective different shapes of theartificial stones, each of the ribs having a height smaller than athickness of the artificial stone it borders; indicating a mark on eachof the artificial stone receiving recesses; conforming the artificialstones with the the artificial stone receiving recesses by checking therespective marks indicated on the artificial stones and the artificialstone receiving recesses; inserting the artificial stones in thecorresponding recesses for a provisional fixation; forming a joint byembedding a joint material in a gap defined between respective pairs ofadjacent artificial stones, the joint material supported by the ribsacting as a joint base; adhesively fixing the artificial stones insertedinto the recesses.